


Much better than nothing

by belmanoir



Category: Dracula (TV 2013)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 14:07:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After episode 5, Grayson decides to cheer Renfield up by baking him apple crumb cakes. </p><p>Established relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Much better than nothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mrs_laugh_track](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_laugh_track/gifts).



Renfield wakes in pain. He's afraid that if he moves, he'll cry out. He opens his eyes and looks right into Grayson's. He freezes, but manages not to jerk back in startlement. Grayson sits on the floor, his chin resting on his folded arms on Renfield's mattress.

Renfield has accustomed himself to Grayson watching him sleep now and again. He thinks it comforts his employer on long, unhappy nights when he's the only waking thing in the house, to be near something alive. Once or twice he's climbed into Renfield's bed and curled up like a cat, close but not touching.

Renfield shuts his eyes, wondering if he can roll over without wincing. Grayson doesn't say anything. He's grateful for that.

###

On the third day, Renfield is too restless to lie in bed any longer. He rises carefully, hunched against the pain. The movements are unpleasantly familiar. He wonders if there will come a point in his life when his last beating is behind him. Perhaps when he's an old man and his body is wracked with other sorts of aches and pains. Perhaps not.

He wonders if he'll still know Grayson when he's old. He wonders if it will disturb Grayson when his hair turns gray.

He debates with himself whether to bother with sock garters and shoes. In the end, he decides the costs would outweigh the benefits. Even in his best suit, he couldn't look polished and invulnerable today. He puts on his loosest fitting suit and leaves off the coat. His suspenders chafe his bruised chest, but he isn't willing to forgo them. He pads downstairs, socks falling around his ankles.

Grayson is drinking and staring into the fire. Privately, Renfield thinks a little more exertion would do wonders for his temperament. 

He looks up with an uncertain smile when Renfield enters. Renfield gives him a small smile back, as if it were a day like any other. "Good morning, sir."

"Good morning, Renfield." His eyes drop. He takes a cheap, clothbound book from beside him on the sofa, turning it over in his hands. "How do you feel?"

Renfield's lips twitch. "As if I had been recently tortured, sir."

Grayson glances at him, mouth curving in amusement. "A foolish question, I suppose."

Renfield makes a sound of agreement and moves cautiously forward to sit at the other end of the wicker sofa. Before he can ease himself down, however, his employer shoots up like a rocket, book clutched in his hands. "You liked Elsa's crumb cakes, I believe you said."

Where is this leading? "They were too good for this world, sir."

Another amused glance. Renfield loves that expression, the brow swiftly lifted in appreciation, the way it comes and goes like the sun behind a cloud and changes the atmosphere as completely. "I had thought I might try to resurrect them. It will no doubt be a grotesque, undead kind of existence, but better than nothing, don't you think?" He holds out the book with both hands, and uncurls his fingers with a flourish. It's a cook-book.

"Much better than nothing, sir," he says firmly. He doesn't mean the cakes, and he thinks Grayson knows it by the look of surprise which crosses his face. That said, he allows himself to enjoy the incongruity of Grayson baking. "I hope you didn't wait for me in hopes of assistance. I can light a stove, and that's about all."

Grayson smiles at him. "I thought you might enjoy watching me suffer." Because of course, the real gift isn't the cakes, which they both know are likely to be inedible. It's an uninterrupted hour or two of Grayson not caring whether he looks foolish.

###

Renfield settles himself into a chair in the corner of the kitchen. Grayson declaims the recipe as if it were a dramatic monologue out of _Henry V_. "'Four ounces lard, one pound sugar, two pounds flour, twelve ounces powdered cake crumbs, half an ounce hartshorn, one pint milk, four eggs. Mix all well together. Roll out, and cut into strips about two inches wide and the length of your baking tins. Cover with granulated sugar, and bake in a hot oven.' It can't hurt to put an apple in that, can it?" 

He lights the oven first, and then digs through the pantry, icebox, and cupboards, muttering curses and _aha!_ s by turns. "Is this the hartshorn?" He sniffs it and rears back, grimacing at Renfield. His eyes dance. 

This--Grayson's whimsy and his playfulness--he shares with no one else. Once he must have shared it with his wife. Renfield doesn't look forward to ceding it to Mina Murray. He watches Grayson peel an apple and crumble stale cake into a bowl, and wishes he loved his hands less.

Grayson clumsily measures and mixes and pours things from one bowl to another in electric, companionable silence. He never minds when Renfield doesn't speak. He never asks any questions Renfield doesn't want to answer. Renfield can never make up his mind whether it's tact or supreme self-involvement. Both, maybe.

Grayson slides the unevenly filled baking tins into the oven, latches the door, and frowns at it. 

"A watched pot never boils, sir."

Grayson gives him a sly smile, as if the meaningless proverb had been a double entendre, and prowls over a little shyly. There's a dab of flour in his hair, and sugar glittering on one cheek. He sinks to his knees. "May I?"

They shouldn't. Renfield is injured, and in the grip of pleasure he won't remember to be careful. But he spends every moment of every day of his life remembering to be careful. Forgetting for fifteen minutes is less likely to kill him here than almost anywhere else. "You may, sir."

Grayson is gentle with his buttons. He glances up at Renfield before he takes him in his mouth. He always does, as if he expects Renfield to change his mind at the last moment. As if he doesn't quite believe that someone would allow his mouth near their cock, knowing what he is. When Renfield shifts forward in his chair, Grayson probably thinks it's trust. They both know how much more precious that is than love. 

But this is merely a calculated risk. Once he left childhood behind him, Renfield has never trusted anyone. Love is easy and painful and costs nothing to feel. Trust can kill you. Certainly no one who could lie so thoroughly as to tell him _You're safe now_ can be trusted. Renfield plans to have and enjoy lots of things in his life, but safety is out of his reach. 

However, Grayson hasn't hurt him yet. Why would he start now? Love and loyalty aside, there's no use in a man of business who can't walk abroad when the banks are open. 

It isn't trust, but there's a warm wet moment when Grayson's mouth closes around him that feels like it. He spreads his legs carefully so that Grayson can fit between them and touch him nowhere but his cock. When he brushes the sugar from Grayson's cheek, his eyes flutter open and his stretched lips turn up a little at the corners. 

Renfield shuts his own eyes, suddenly unable to look at Grayson, at his mussed dark hair and neat moustache, at his sharply drawn face and slender shoulders. The first time he saw him, he thought he could probably break Grayson in half. Grayson's strength is obscene and heartbreaking. His fingers curl around Renfield's cock like wire. 

Renfield groans and Grayson, who doesn't need to breathe, takes him in deeper. It isn't fair that a sensation of such unalloyed pleasure should make him feel like weeping. He takes deep breaths, unable to forget to be careful after all. A minute or two later, he spills in Grayson's mouth. 

Grayson leans in to kiss him lightly as he stands. 

"Is there anything I can do for you, sir?"

"Later," Grayson promises. "I have to check on my cakes."

**Author's Note:**

> I took the [recipe for crumb cake](http://books.google.com/books?id=pyoEAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22crumb%20cake%22&pg=PA72#v=onepage&q=%22crumb%20cake%22&f=false) from _Green's Receipt Book_ (1894).


End file.
